Monday, September 13, 2010

In the Sabbath morning we accepted the call as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Desdemona, Texas, our little ranching community 90 miles southwest of Fort Worth.

In the Sabbath evening, we held the first worship celebration of Bread Fellowship, our new community of faith in Fort Worth.

We feel led to lend our pastoral energies to both of these Christian communities.

When my interim pastorate ended with the First Baptist Church of Brownwood in June, the folks in Desdemona invited me to preach. They had experienced numerous challenges in recent years. Attendance has dwindled to 8 worshippers. Discussions centered on closing the doors of this historic Texas church.

We have preached all summer, except for prior Sabbath commitments in other places, and have witnessed the power of the Word of God to convene—and reconvene— a community of faith, hope, and love. We have experienced lively and meaningful Sabbath services, with more and more worshippers week by week, to the happy point that the saints at Desdemona see new life and possibility in their fellowship again.

We are privileged to serve our own neighborhood church where our ranch is located and where Jana’s grandparents invested their lives.

In the Sabbath evening yesterday we had the first worship celebration of our exciting new ministry in Fort Worth called Bread Fellowship. We have been meeting in two small group Bible studies for the past year, and have a core group of 40 or so. Nothing fancy, just sitting in folding chairs arranged in a circle with the Lord's Table in the center.

Our sense of the Spirit's leadership is to focus on the Museum District/Montgomery Plaza area of our city, just west of downtown Fort Worth. We presently meet in the community room of the Monticello Apartments at the corner of North Bailey and White Settlement, but, with yesterday’s gathering, we have already run out of space. We are reaching out mainly to young adults who, for one reason or another, have an ambiguous relationship with the institutional church. (I always smile when I write this line, because we too will likely be institutional enough very soon!) We have no plans to own property or a building.

We are trying to keep this ministry highly inclusive, interactive, informal and intimate, building Christian community around Scripture, prayer, fellowship, and hands-on mission involvement. We have a two word mission statement: Eat. Feed.

I have joined two other fine ministers, Terry Austin and Paul Hood-Patterson, in a pastoral team. There will be others joining this pastoral circle; we are open to God-called ministers who feel led to build a ministry of radical inclusiveness and love.

Let me take a minute to ask you brothers and sisters a big favor:

If you have friends or family members who live in Fort Worth and who do not have a church home, and you feel comfortable providing us their names and contact information, we would be privileged to extend the invitation and friendship of Christ to these friends. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter.

Your prayers are the best gifts. Thank you for lifting us up to the Light of God's love and grace! And, do send us those contacts, as the Spirit leads.

So, Jana and I are now circuit-riding Sabbath preachers, glad and grateful to proclaim our Lord’s great good news in these two fascinating congregational contexts.

Charlie, this is great news. The next time I'm in Ft. Worth, I'll look you up. I was listening to some "old" 1991 sermons of yours tonight and thought about how much I miss getting to talk to you occasionally. Mom is giving those tapes and some of John Claypool to Ryon Price tomorrow and I wanted to capture them on my computer before she gave them up. It was so good to hear your voice and listen to the sermons again even if they are almost 20 years old.

Hi, Charlie, Remembering listening to your sermons in the 90s in LBB, I would love for you to post more sermons. I am way behind....I recently moved to the San Antonio area - I woke up this Sunday morning with all intent of going to hear you at the church in San Antonio. So you can imagine my surprise when I realized how truly far behind I am....you left there 5 years ago! I found this webpage and caught myself up on your accomplishments and where abouts.....I very much enjoyed listening to a couple of your posted sermons, all the while reconnecting with listening to that full deep voice of inflections that you so easily delivered the message with. Some day I would love to visit the First Baptist Church in Desdemona. I have always held the way in which you deliver the message as truly enlightening and the way in which it should be done! God bless.

top [url=http://www.c-online-casino.co.uk/]uk casino online[/url] check the latest [url=http://www.casinolasvegass.com/]casino games[/url] manumitted no set aside perk at the best [url=http://www.baywatchcasino.com/]casino games [/url].

About Me

Charlie Johnson is the founding co-pastor of Bread, a non-traditional faith community in Fort Worth, Texas.
He has been in pastoral ministry for over 30 years, serving with churches in Kentucky and Texas, including the Trinity Baptist Church of San Antonio (2001-2006) and the Second Baptist Church of Lubbock (1989-2001).
He taught preaching at McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University (2006-2008), and was inducted into the Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers in 2008.
He is married to Jana and has three children. Chad (34) is married to Mary Beth Lancaster of Oklahoma and manages the Rocky Creek Ranch west of San Angelo, TX. Cliff (30) works the oil fields of Midland, Texas. Chris Anne (27) works and lives in Fort Worth. He has a granddaughter, Corley Elizabeth, age 3, and a grandson, Clayton Foster, 6 months.